Combat Manuals
by The Anomalocaris
Summary: Nino discovers an unsettling secret beneath the Order of Heroes, and the Summoner won't stop talking in Thanos quotes.


_**Author's Note: **__Was on a long drive stuck in traffic, when inspiration struck. Decided to use Nino this time since I used Reinhardt last time. Every shitpost story needs a meme protagonist, after all._

_Published 6/24/19_

* * *

Nino sat up in her bunk and grumbled. She had been fruitlessly trying to fall asleep for the past three hours, tossing and turning in discomfort.

"_Shouldn't'a eaten all that ham…"_

Quietly, she shuffled out of her blankets and winced as stepped down onto the cold varnished floor. She obviously wouldn't be getting any rest that night, at least not until her stomach settled, so she reasoned that she may as well do something else. It wouldn't be the first time an insomniatic night was spent sneaking around. She once got caught by Reinhardt in the Order's kitchen, but the two agreed not to snitch on each other's midnight snacking.

A quick glance upward suggested her "sister" was still sound asleep. It was always strange when the Summoner pulled another version of an existing hero, such as the slightly older, pegasus-riding Nino who was currently resting in the top bunk. Unsurprisingly, the two girls found they had a lot in common and quickly became thick as thieves. Stranger but more common than alternate versions, however, was when the Summoner pulled _exact_ duplicates. Or, exact as far as Nino could tell; sometimes she'd hear the Summoner mutter something about "eye-vees", but it was unparseable esoterica to a girl who couldn't even read yet, let alone track stats. The Summoner didn't seem to like keeping the spares around, however, and would always dismiss them. On some rare occasions it was the older copy who was sacked in favor of the newer one. Either way, in exchange for terminating the contract early and sending them back home, the Order of Heroes would typically receive a "Combat Manual", a book written by the dismissed party describing how to perform certain skills or increase one's power.

"_Hmm… books sound like a good idea right now actually. Still gotta learn how to read if I want to be the best Nino I can be."_

She lit and picked up a candle from the nightstand, and threw her favorite purple cloak around herself for warmth. Silently, she opened the door and stepped out into the barrack hall.

"_And I wouldn't be a good Nino at all if I didn't do my best!"_

* * *

"…Something… _something_… Pete?"

Nino sat alone in the Order's library, attempting to read. It was a lot harder to practice without someone to tutor her, but she wasn't about to go waking up Canas or the Summoner at four o'clock in the morning just to help with something as trivial as that.

"_Shanty_ Pete! Right! Okay… 'threw,' 'his,' 'hook'… ugh, why does this word have so many letters?!"

Foiled by a pentasyllabic roadblock, she closed the book and stood up from the couch. Carrying her candle with her, she returned the thick fiction book to its place on the shelf and began browsing for something lighter. A purple book caught her eye.

"_The… Glass? Gloss? Glossary of… Fal… Ent—Entom…? Wha?"_

She plucked the glossary out of the shelf and opened it up to a random page, wherein she found a large picture.

"Ew!" she cried as she swiftly closed the book and shoved it back in. Evidently, 'entom'-whatever meant big ugly bugs.

"_Okay… how about… Rib… Ribeye Tales of the Faith War?"_

Her stomach turned. She didn't want to read about food right now, crusading or otherwise. Soon she found herself at the east end of the library, where the thinnest books were kept: the Combat Manuals.

"_Yeah, one of these will do. They're short and use simple words."_

Keeping the flame of the candle close, she perused the various names attached to each book. Some were totally illegible to her, others she was able to read simply because they were simple names. "Lute, Robin, Alm, Est…"

Some other names she was able to instantly recognize simply because they were people close to herself. "Lloyd, Linus, Legault, Jaffar…" Her face lit up at the next recognizable one. "And Nino! Heehee!"

There were quite a few Nino-penned books, in fact. Evidently, she was a fairly common summon compared to the others. Something occurred to her as she ran a finger across the row of Ninos.

"_Hold on, I can't even read all that well yet. How did these other mes _write_ a book?"_

She grasped one of the manuals and prepared to pull it out, when a sudden slamming noise came from the library entrance accompanied by a cool breeze. "Eep!"

The candle extinguished by the rush of wind, Nino quickly glanced over at the open doors. It was too dark to make much out, but she could see some kind of long object being pushed by a hooded figure. A casket, or some kind of stretcher?

Nino wasn't exactly sure who else would be skulking around in the dead of the night, and decided to remain silent in the dark, backing away behind a small shelf to observe the mysterious intruder. It didn't appear to be Reinhardt struggling with a pickle jar again. Whoever they were, they did not seem to notice her. The long object was on wheels, now that Nino's eyes adjusted to the dark a little, and the person was pushing it toward a shelf on the west side of the room. They stopped the cart in the middle of the reading area and approached the books by themself, staring silently at the assorted tomes. After a few seconds of nothing, they slowly placed a hand over a single volume and pushed inward. The book slid back into the shelf with an odd _click_, and the figure backed away as the entire shelf began to swing outward like a massive door, a low and heavy groan resonating throughout the library.

"_What in the world?"_ Nino was intrigued, to say the least. The figure returned to the cart, and pushed it through the new corridor opened by the secret door. It closed behind them, and the library was still once again.

Regretting her lack of a fire tome, Nino fumbled with a match and managed to get her candle re-lit. She quickly made her way over to the false shelf, and without even thinking performed the same action to get it to open again. Sure enough, the secret passage opened itself up to her just as it had to the stranger. Of course, with a light source, Nino could now see inside the hidden chamber. It was a gloomy cobblestone path sloping downward into the earth, in stark contrast to the warm wooden library it was attached to.

"_How long has this been here?!"_

Nino took a deep breath and stepped inside, keeping her light source close to her to make sure it wasn't blown out again. The door closed behind her, and she swallowed nervously, her stomach churning once more just after she had finally gotten it to settle down.

"_Okay, whatever's down here can't be too scary. I mean, this is the Order of Heroes! Sure, there's some weirdos here, but we're all good people, right?"_

Figures like Garon, Gharnef, and Ursula crossed her mind.

"_Well, most of us are, and the good ones keep the bad ones in check."_

She silently made her way down the stone hall, thankful that she wasn't wearing shoes or anything that would make noise. As she got deeper into the chamber she quickly changed her mind about footwear, as the smooth stone surface gave way to something unreasonably cold and unreasonably bumpy beneath her bare feet. She lowered her candle, only to find the floor was now entirely metal; the walls and ceiling too, now that she took a look.

The important implications quickly dawned on her. _"Commander Anna's gonna be pissed if she sees this hallway. She's always complaining that metal isn't cheap."_

She snuffed out her candle, having no further use for it; the ceiling was adorned with long, thin lamps that seemed to glow indefinitely and without fire. A very faint buzzing sound emanated from them along with the light, but a deeper rumbling came from somewhere further in. Taking one last look around the futuristic (for her) facility, she opened a gray metal door and stepped into a massive chamber.

The first thing she noticed was that she was standing up on some kind of balcony; an L-shaped walkway that ran across two of the room's walls, suspended above a floor about thirty feet down. The obvious source of the unpleasant whirring came from the lower floor, a massive machine sitting dead-center. Whatever it was, it had numerous pipes and moving parts all over it, and a gigantic funnel on top. A hole on the side of it featured a long, thin sheet of something that constantly rotated like a very flat wheel; a belt for conveying objects, it seemed.

Most importantly, upon the adjacent wall's walkway she spotted the hooded figure from before, illuminated under the strange electrical lights. Indeed, the hood was instantly recognizable as the Summoner's. The metal casket, also diagonal from Nino's spot, remained a mystery. Nino considered calling out to the Summoner, but something in her gut- not ham, but an anxious feeling -was crying out to her to _not_ draw attention to herself. At the very least she'd likely get a scolding for going out so late at night. So instead, she crouched down; the railings were thin metal bars and wouldn't conceal her at all if the Summoner chose to look in her direction, but it was better than just standing there like an idiot with her shock of green hair contrasting to every dull gray surface in the room.

The Summoner turned around, and Nino tensed up, but it seemed her cover wasn't blown; a figure in a tattered black hood had entered from a door on that side of the room, quietly speaking and gesturing to the metal box. The Summoner undid the latches on it and lifted the entire thing off, revealing that it did not have a bottom. Indeed, "casket" may have been the appropriate term; atop the plain cart rested a human body. Nino felt ill again. Was this some kind of morgue? Did she really just find where the Summoner puts dead bodies?

Her concerns were thankfully dispelled when the black-hooded figure spoke, just loud enough for Nino to hear over the machine. "He is sleeping?" The voice was feminine, and incredibly tired, as if she hadn't slept in weeks. Nino recognized it, but couldn't place the owner. The Summoner's less-mistakable voice responded. "Yes. As with all of them, he won't wake up tonight."

Now that Nino took a closer look, she could recognize the sleeping man atop the barrow. Rutger, a man from her own world's future, but a hero she was not particularly familiar with herself. The hooded woman spoke again, still weary. "Shall he be used as a merge, to empower the current Rutger?"

"I have not decided yet. Either way, there is no purpose in keeping two of him around as they are."

"I understand that... I shall take my leave, then, if you don't mind."

"Be my guest."

The mystery woman left, and the Summoner turned back to the unconscious myrmidon. Nino frowned from her not-so-secret hiding spot. _"Come to think of it, we did just get a copy of him today… What on earth are you doing with the spare Rutger?"_

The Summoner, as if telepathically hearing and answer Nino's question, grasped the cart and began to push it along the walkway. It was then that Nino took notice of the perpendicular path jutting out around the center, ending just above the large square funnel on the bizarre machine. The Summoner pushed the cart along it, approaching the end. There was no guard rail, much to Nino's dismay. _"That's really dangerous! Somebody could fall!"_

The Summoner seemingly ignored Nino's thoughts this time, parking Rutger perilously close to the edge. Before Nino could even think about why, something terrible happened: the Summoner tilted the cart back, and Rutger's unconscious body tumbled off and down into the machine.

"NO!" Nino screamed, holding her hands to her mouth. Even had she silenced herself in time, the loud metal _clang_ of her candle dish dropping to the floor would have given her away regardless. Far worse noises came from the machine, however; the unmistakable sound of _flesh and bone being rended apart_. Nino had heard it before, on the battlefield, but never this… _violent._ Mechanical. A sanguine smell permeated the air and blood began to pour forth from one of the deathtrap's pipes; it spilled out on the well-stained slate floor and trickled down a drain. Finally, the deathly noises ended and the machine returned to its previous innocent hum; from the opening on the side of the machine, a single green book slid out onto the belt.

Nino wasn't even sure what to do. She had just watched a man get murdered right in front of her. By _the Summoner._ To make a _book_. Her thoughts immediately jumped back to all the other Combat Manuals back up in the library. The row of _Nino_ books. All bound in flesh and inked with blood. Her entire body paled, and her knees began to feel weak. A cold hand clasped her shoulder, stopping her mid-fall.

The female voice from before spoke. "Welcome, Nino, daughter of Iris." She punctuated herself with a weak cough.

Nino weakly turned her head around to look at the source. "Who… are you? Where am I…?"

"You should know, that knowledge extracts a terrible price."

"I…"

"We all think we're prepared at first…We are all wrong…" The hood fell back.

"…Princess Fjorm? You… This is where you've been? Ever since we killed Surtr, you disappeared…"

Fjorm kept her hand on Nino's shoulder, the coldness coming from more than just her Nifl heritage. She quietly led Nino over to the Summoner's position; said Summoner stood silently, looking out over the machine, and Nino was too sullen to resist. She just wanted to know the truth.

The Summoner turned to Nino, face entirely unreadable, as Fjorm released her grasp and backed away to one of the walls. Nino glanced up at the Summoner, her own face _very _readable. "You… why… you _killed _him…"

The Summoner spoke. "A duplicate. The first Rutger still walks amongst the living."

"But… that's…" She scrunched up her face and fought back tears. "You're insane."

"Little one, it's a simple calculus. This barrack is finite, our resources finite. If the roster is left unchecked, the roster… will cease to exist. It needs correction."

Nino failed to hold her tears back any longer, and gazed down at the metal grate of the walkway. "You're killing heroes… All of the summons you said you dismissed back to their homes…" The Summoner remained as unmoving as before, and Nino felt disgust rise up within her. Disgust, confusion, and betrayal.

"I… I loved you. Like a mother… Or, uh, a father, I don't actually know what gender you-" She wiped her eyes. "I thought you loved me, and everyone else, but you…"

"I do. Which is why this is going to hurt me to my core…"

She risked glancing up the face of the former family member. Much to her surprise, a teardrop was rolling down the Summoner's cheek. Nino almost wanted to laugh at how perverse it was, a murderer crying about anticipated pain. "…Really? _Tears?_"

Fjorm's withered voice interjected from behind. "They are not for the Summoner."

Nino frowned, then gazed fearfully at the now-threatening figure. The mad Summoner wore a sad frown, and took a ponderous step toward her.

"No. This isn't love…" She backed away, but the Summoner grabbed her wrist.

"I'm sorry, little one…"

Nino found herself dragged to the edge of the walkway. Small as she was, she was unable to break free from the Summoner's grasp. She struggled and struggled, but soon felt the ground disappear from beneath her as she was tossed off, down into the press. The sight of the Summoner's hooded face grew further and further, and the sound of the metal saw blades below her grew closer and closer…

* * *

"AAAAAAAAAH- OW! Shit…"

Nino wasn't entirely sure what it felt like to be ripped apart by a thresher, but she imagined it was _entirely_ dissimilar to sitting up too fast in bed and bashing her skull against the top bunk. Which is what she was currently feeling. Her breathing slowed back down to normal, and she rubbed her scalp in pain. She was alive and back in her own bed, at least. "Ow…"

Her own voice, the voice of her new sister, descended from above. "You okay down there, other me?"

"Y-yeah, just had a bad nightmare… Please don't tell Uncle Legault I swore, you know he doesn't like that."

"What was it about? Do you wanna talk?"

As with many dreams, most of the details had already slipped away from memory. Something about a secret room, Combat Manuals being people, and her own apparent death. "No, I'm fine. Just… ugh."

"I told you not to eat so much ham."

"Ylgr wouldn't stop egging me on!"

"Ylgr's dumb! Don't listen to her! Remember when Dorcas ate all that mutton and got _really_ sick for days?"

"Yeah…"

"Do you want me to get you anything?"

"No, no, I'm fine. Thanks, though. I think I'll just try and go back to sleep."

"You sure you don't want to go to the library to read again?"

The primary Nino's eyes shot open wide. "NO! N-no, I don't want to go there! I just…" She calmed down. "Good night, other me. Sorry for waking you up."

"Good night!"

Nino laid her head back down on her pillow. _"It was just a dream. The Summoner's not evil, there's no big book machine… Everything's fine…"_

As she began to doze off again, a nagging thought occurred to her and her eyes half-opened.

"_But then how _did_ my other illiterate selves write their Combat Manuals?!"_


End file.
